Aircraft-based platforms are ideally suited for time-sensitive emergency, as well as routine, sensing or other electronic based search, monitoring, surveillance and response activities. For example, numerous civilian- and military-based aircraft response agencies require high resolution aerial thermal (IR), radar, ultra violet (UV), photographic, multi-spectral, hyperspectral or other sensor imagery in a timely manner. Similarly, such agencies may also require electronics intelligence (ELINT) data, communications relay, communications intelligence (COMINT) data, signals intelligence (SIGINT) data, communications jamming, satellite communications (SATCOM), satellite telemetry, electronic support measures (ESM), electronics countermeasures (ECM), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), magnetic anomaly detection (MAD), missile counter measures (MCM) pods, or other types of electronic or image sensing information pods in a timely fashion to formulate a given response.
Existing aircraft mounting methodologies for these or related C4ISR electronics and sensors are typically packaged in systems dedicated to a specific aircraft, or partially dedicated in as much that a given system can be mounted within a pod which can be moved between aircraft but still necessitates air frame modifications to accommodate wing or belly mounting pylons typical of the USAF RC-12.
As an alternative, an aircraft door compatible temporary mounting system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,648, entitled “Aircraft Based Sensing, Detection, Targeting, Communications, and Response Apparatus” issued Jul. 27, 1999 to Richard L. K. Woodland, and incorporated herein by reference. The Woodland invention is able to accommodate mounting on various aircraft without incurring any airframe modifications but is completely reliant on a mounting pallet to absorb flight induced loads which are then transferred from the torque pallet into the aircraft floor structure. The pallet mounted special mission assembly disclosed by Woodland when used in conjunction with rear loading/jettisoning cargo aircraft like a Lockheed Martin C-130 also compromises all other backend air drop operations which require use of the air deployment system (ADS) rails.
Accordingly there is an on-going, unaddressed need to achieve a flexible, rapidly-installed, roll-on, cost-effective, airborne C4ISR and special mission strut and pod mounting methodology.
Further, there is a need for such a strut and pod that permits a 360-degree field of view (FOV).
Further, there is a need for such a strut and pod that does not interfere with backend cargo air drop operations.
Still further, there is a need for such a strut and pod that provides in-flight extension and retraction of the strut and payload assemblies into the fuselage for reloading or changing sensor configurations, and provides an alternate load transfer path for externally-mounted payload systems into the primary aircraft structure without using a pallet or necessitating modifications to the host aircraft.